Phase 3: Mission 153

[soul_mods]

Characters: Grand Canyon mission goers, victims, medics
Location: Grand Canyon
Rating: R
Time: Feb 5, 2009, mission starts at dawn
Description: Event links list.


The scouts had done their jobs well and the mirror deposits its travelers just at the end of the area Shibusen has closed off as their mission target. It's still dawn, the sun barely visible over the horizon. The witches hasn't noticed them there yet, the scouts say, so it's still possible to take them by surprise.

This is what the agents are told: In the rock face of the Grand Canyon is a cavern system made up of many small caves and three large ones. The large caves contain a kishin egg pit, the kidnapped agents and civilians, and what appears to be a machine at one end. There are about five dozen zombies crawling the area, and an equal number of ants, spiders, and ravens on top of it.

Worst of all, the scouts report that they had sighted a few of the agents patrolling for the Witches. The scouts hadn't been certain if these ones had soul perception or other abilities, and had given the area as much space as they could in order to avoid an early confrontation. Still, it's bad news and it looks like a fight with some of the kidnappees themselves is inevitable.

Not much time is given to the agents after the briefing before they're being ushered into place. A few scouts are going to be causing a commotion some distance away to distract the familiars and zombies, clearing a path for the agents. After that, it's all up to them.


[ooc: Just put up your own threads with the subject line [Characters][Feeding Cave/MMM Cave/Kishin Egg Pit/Elsewhere][Open/Close]
Kidnappees can go thread in the caves while waiting for the rescuers, too.
For those who want to thread with a witch, please add it in the subject line so we know where to go!
This day change will be one week irl.
The mirror will stay open for anyone who needs to be rushed back to the medics.
For those handwaving, please put your summaries here for the meister points and soul tally record.]

Comments

[L Lawliet and Mello][Feeding Cave][Open to Plot Peeps]

[dead_black_eyes]

They had arrived together. Everything had gone according to plan, transportation-wise. Bakura and Vash as a pair, and Light and L associated, but always keeping an arm's length between them. The two certainly seemed to know each other, they even looked right together, in a strange way... but they still stepped carefully, as if expecting the other man to pull a dagger at any second.

L wore a thick winter scarf around his neck on the mission. Everyone present either knew why, or was too polite to ask.

The more experienced fighters were Bakura and Vash, beyond a doubt. The Meister/Weapon pair walked ahead, with Light and L bringing up the rear. L would never admit it out loud, but Light was right; the two of them really weren't cut out for combat situations. The encroaching zombies and rearing kishin eggs put them so far out of their element that L was hard-pressed just to catch his breath, much less use everything he'd learned in his sparse training sessions.

When a Kishin Egg attacked, he was especially aware of his ineptness. He was here for words, diplomacy and persuasion, not this gaping, dripping maw with a vibrating aura making something quiver and shrink in his own chest. They ate souls, they would eat his soul, if they could... and Light's, too, he realized, and what good was Light without a soul? It was absurd.

He got ready to push the younger man out of the way, deciding that his handcuffs would be more effective than anything Light would be able to pull together.

But Bakura was already moving in front of both of them, standing beside Vash.

"Both of you, find cover! We'll handle this one, just get away from here!"

[It took L a moment to unfreeze, to realize that he was supposed to run after he'd braced himself for a fight he didn't actually know how to win. Light actually shattered the momentary paralysis by seizing his arm, yanking him away, running down a deserted passage. The only sounds were their breath and their shoes against the dusty canyon ground.

It was pitch-black. There was no point of reference; they'd run away from the battle with the Kishin, but what they'd run to was a question that L would have liked answered. He took a moment to lean against the cavern wall, laying a hand against his thin, aching chest and catching his breath. "Light... it's not good for us to be so far from the others... we should..."

He had the sinking suspicion that no one was hearing his words. His hand shot out, feeling for his companion, his Weapon, his partner, his mortal enemy.

His eyes adjusted, gradually, as well as his ears. He was able to pick a path towards a dim red glow and distant sounds of voices, flames and metal at the end of this particular tunnel; he wasn't quite certain if it was back toward Vash and Bakura. He and Light had taken a few turns, he thought... there had been a part of the tunnel that had curved to the left, and then a sharp right turn, and then two lefts...

His eyes widened when he reached the source of the light and sound. He seemed to have found a huge chamber, full of Kishin eggs and prisoners.

Near and Mello were both present... and now, more than ever, they looked to be on opposite sides.

[want_the_world]

It was impossible to miss the commotion out in the caves when the rescuers started arriving. Mello had been expecting this. Confusion reigned in the feeding cave, some of the witches and their creatures rushing out to mount a defense, some readying for a fight here, and was that witch trying to drag Mello's prisoner away? He'd kept one eye on the twit the whole time, even when he was tossing other poor bastards into the pit, and he hurried over now.

As he did, he spotted an all-too-familiar mop of black hair and slouching shoulders. Oh, fuck.

But the shock only ruled him for a moment, and his stride barely faltered. What should he care, if L wanted to throw his life away in this fight? If he'd come to save them, it was too little, too late.

"No! That one's mine," he told the witch when he reached Near, and grabbed a fistful of the twit's shirt, shoved him back, arm across his chest, hoping that would keep him from seeing the rescuers. "And you know it, N. And playtime's over."

[cardfortress]

Near lost track of how much time had passed since he last saw Mello. It was hard to have a good perception of time when he couldn't see daylight or the lack thereof, and there was only so much precision his mental calculations could achieve under those conditions. It was all slightly disorienting, and although Near had always been considerably immune to the suffering of those around him, the walls he built in that place weren't strong enough. They were permeable to the flickers of madness wavelength, the fear and the anxiety experienced by the other prisoners, and little by little, his own mind was assaulted with the occasional gripping fear that his time had finally come.

But he made it through, watching as a great number of prisoners were taken away from their imprisonment and taken to their demise. Their screams were easier to drown out at the beginning, when their numbers were higher and the probability of being next was smaller... but now, their numbers had lessened, and he knew that the probability of him being next was significantly higher than before.

At a point, he knew something was up. He couldn't examine the details of whatever was happening, but he didn't really have the time to do so anyway because someone-- was that a Witch?-- grabbed him and tugged him away...

Until Mello interfered.

The 'No!' almost made him think his partner had finally turned back to normal, but the following words shattered any hope he may have had of leaving that place alive. It was obvious that Mello was finally out for blood, and he was going to take action right now, so Near saw no other option as the other man shoved him back: he needed to struggle.

And so he did. As the adrenaline in his blood system reached its peak, Near shifted his body so he could bite down on Mello's forearm-- hard-- and then transformed into his Weapon form, falling neatly on to the ground to make his escape by rolling away after turning back to normal.

[dead_black_eyes]

Surely, Mello wasn’t going to… he wouldn’t; even if he and Near had their differences, at the end of the day they were partners. They had grown past the poisonous dynamic in Wammy’s, hadn’t they, the Christmas tape was enough to prove that even Mello was starting to overcome that proud defiance…

Time to think was no longer a luxury the detective could afford. His body reacted almost reflexively to the sudden peril of his successor, legs stumbling two numb steps before he closed the distance between them at an all-out sprint, even as Near was biting Mello's arm, transforming, and getting out of the way. It was a good thing, too; adrenaline made even L's wiry body a force to be reckoned with as he seized Mello’s arms, wrenching them back, doing whatever he could to put distance between the two young men and the Kishin Pit.

Grasping Mello by his leather vest, L shoved his back against the rough wall of the cavernous room, bearing down on his successor, his eyes very like Near's but furious. If Mello was like fire, and Near was like ice, then L was like water: ice made him colder, fire made him boil, and at this moment, he was scalding. When pushed to a certain point, the isolated, cool-headed detective was definitely capable of considerable wrath.

"You can't do that, Mello. I don't know what you think you're proving, but you can NOT do that to him."

Something was wrong... L searched Mello's face for any sign that something was amiss, something like the madness at work...

[silicomb]

It certainly wasn't part of any plan Sollux had in mind for the entire operation. It'd been simple in the beginning; go in, retrieve target idiots, get out, return to the city. Now things had changed and Sollux isn't entirely sure how or why or what it really means. Which is a lie in and of itself. He knows precisely what happened to bring about the change in plan, knows why and with a general approximation of when, like a layer of icing atop a confectionery sponge treat.

Somehow, in the midst of the charge between Shibusen operatives and every fucking creature in the caves designed to kill and eat aforementioned operatives, he'd lost his Weapon. Somehow, with Madness Waves rattling around the caves and passages like particularly unpleasant scraps of sonar, he'd lost Matt and the party they were with and he'd stumbled, blind and deaf and embarrassingly near panic, away from the group and into the warren of caves like a complete and utter moron. That he hadn't been picked off or struck down during his utterly haphazardous flight was nothing short of a Really Good Thing. (A miracle, he'd call it, if he wasn't so disdainful of the term and all it stood for.)

It's why he's there, crouched down in what had felt like a secure little corner, relying on the activity in the chamber to direct attention away from him. There are people present, that much he knows (smells, sort of, a myriad of mingled and dancing colours he doubts are native to the natural surroundings), people and chaos and it's only a matter of time before someone steps on him or finds him or tosses him to the rising sense of urgency in the area.

Alone and ineffectual as he is, it's why he doesn't move when he hears familiar voices. L. Mello. Near. Familiar and relieving, as wrong wrong wrong as they sound. He wants to bring their asses back to the city, not get his own handed to him in the process.

So he stays there, huddled in his darkened little corner, not daring to breathe too deeply lest he miss a single word uttered.

Patience was key here, and above all, some god fucking survival.

[want_the_world]

Mello made a desperate, snarling lunge after Near, trying to grab the cube. L was too fast.

But Mello felt alive for the first time in months; yes, even shoved up against the wall, with his arms aching as if his shoulders had almost been pulled from their sockets, and a fierce stinging on his arm that told him the little bastard had broken the skin. He'd lost his edge in Death City, lost his drive. The way the madness had hit him the other day had only been proof of that. That was over now.

"I can, and I will!" he shot back. "What, now you fucking care about us?" He struggled, but L was a lot stronger than he looked, and he had half a foot of height on Mello and a grip like iron. The words came spilling out, the ones Mello had barely even thought to himself, let alone said aloud, the emotions he'd kept tamped down, never let himself fully feel. It was past time he stopped holding back.

"Now, when you didn't give enough of a shit at home to visit more than the once? And you couldn't even be bothered to name one of us before you abandoned us? You abandoned me. I was fourteen, goddamn it, and you were so fucking in love with your own death that you ran out to meet it! Why? For him? How did he mean more than us?"

He tried to jerk his arms away again, but it was a distraction for his real objective, the sweeping kick he aimed at L's legs as hard as he could.

[cardfortress]

As soon as he hit the ground, Near crawled away from his Meister, only to realize that someone else had joined them: L. Immediately, his first fear was that he was also out for blood, and Near scrambled to his feet and took a few quick steps back, just in case his mentor would also turn against him-- but that didn't seem to be the case. L was defending him and he looked and sounded very much like himself, but a lot angrier than usual. Was L a fellow kidnap victim, or was he actually part of a rescue team? And if so, why would he be alone and not accompanied by fellow rescuers?

He realized belatedly that he could taste blood-- Mello's blood-- on his lips, and he wiped his mouth immediately on a sleeve that was already tainted with his own blood. He felt disgusted, but whether that feeling was brought on by the fact that someone else's blood was in his mouth, or the situation they were currently in, he did not know, but he suspected it was a very unhealthy mix of both.

He listened in silence as Mello confessed things he wouldn't have said had his inhibitions not been lowered, somehow. It didn't surprise him the slightest-- his partner's affection for L had always been painfully obvious to anyone with a functioning brain-- but even in a situation like that he couldn't help wondering if Mello had missed the whole point of L never having named a single successor.

Near had accepted it, back when Roger told them about their mentor's death, even though he didn't quite understand it at the time. It wasn't until the end of the Kira case, when Mello's suicidal plan helped him (no, them) win, that realization truly dawned on him: he finally understood they were meant to work together, their traits and efforts merging into one single entity that was even greater than their mentor. Neither he nor Mello could truly become L on their own, but together, they could surpass him. Maybe that had been the whole point, all along, but no one besides L could truly see it.

He took a deep, quiet breath, and finally spoke up. "He isn't under the effect of the madness wavelength," he explained calmly, his tone a drastic contrast against Mello's emotional storm. "This is something entirely different. I have witnessed others taking prisoners to their deaths, and they do so in control of themselves, without any fear or semblance of regret. This is a deeper and much more effective kind of manipulation, unlike the mental chaos provoked by the madness."

But then Mello jerked and attacked L in turn, and Near stepped back once again, examining their surroundings almost frantically-- until his eyes fell on what appeared to be the very familiar sight of four yellow horn tips in a particularly shadowy corner not too far away. Sollux.

[dead_black_eyes]

Though his languid appearance belied it, L could be be very quick when he needed to be. He was the sort who tended to rise to occasions that demanded excess, and where he borrowed the strength, endurance, and agility required was anyone's guess. But they were there, and they were startling in someone who, by all sound logic, appeared too frail and insubstantial to have much of an effect on his surroundings at all.

His grip on Mello, though, was every bit as unyielding as the steel his Weapon form was composed of, even without transforming. Mello had always felt things, deeply, and perhaps too strongly to make him an entirely balanced person; L was actually amazed that he'd been able to keep these things bottled up for as long as he had when the words carried so much pain and anger.

Before he could cobble together any sort of answer to Mello's impassioned (and not remotely untrue) statements, Near's voice caught both their notice. L paid Near's calmly supplied words as much attention as he could afford, well aware that Mello's slight frame could move like a whip and therefore deserved due wariness. While it was some kind of relief, to know that Mello wasn't affected by the Madness Wavelength, a force that both L and his emotional successor had a difficult history with, it wasn't exactly encouraging to know that it was something different. Something worse. Was it useful? Time would tell what L could do with the information.

Unfortunately, time was, yet again, something the detective was perilously short on. He'd gotten too thoughtful, let his guard down just slightly, and Mello's sweeping kick all but knocked his skinny legs out from under him.

Two things happened, as a direct result of this simple, swift act.

The first was that L's grip on Mello's vest did not slacken. If anything, his fingers tightened, dragging Mello down with him as he tripped and toppled.

The second was that a successor laying hand or foot on L was an act of insubordination that he could not accept. He was willing to put up with a lot, from people he remembered as children (and a strange, broken breed of children, at that.) But endangering him, or a piece of him in the form of a white-haired savant, was inexcusable.

L was almost better at combat when he was down. Shifting his slight weight abruptly, he pushed Mello onto his back, pinning him, a bony knee jabbing itself sharply into the younger man's sternum.

"Listen to me," he hissed, eyes narrowing. "I'm touched that you grieved my death. But that is no excuse for you to kill the only person who would ever make it possible for you to succeed me. That is no excuse for you to dare to try to hurt me, do you understand? I am L. Perhaps you've heard of me. Senselessly self-destructing is not how one gets this title. The process is painful, it's dehumanizing, and it's lonely, I know because I lived it, I was the first to live it. Staying alive without 'running out to meet' death is difficult enough. But hear this, Mello, I do not tolerate what you are attempting, what you are saying, and what you are accomplishing. I do not tolerate it from anyone."

In L's fury and the scuffle of the fight, his scarf had slipped slightly. For someone looking (as they might be, given the unexpected and unseasonable departure from L's starkly minimalist style), it was possible to see a glimpse of dark, mottled bruising just below his jawline.

[want_the_world]

The landing knocked the wind out of Mello, and L's knee on his chest made drawing a deep breath impossible. His fury hadn't abated; if anything, he was all the angrier because he couldn't lash out physically anymore. He felt as if his pulse were roaring in his ears, but through it, he could hear Near, the little bastard, sounding as calm as ever, as if he had no more interest in this, was no more affected by it, than he'd be watching paint dry. How dare he? Their resonance was broken, had shattered days earlier, but Mello still knew the little wanker well enough to know that he was storing up every word to use against him later.

And how dare L lecture Mello for being what the House had made him? What L had had a huge part in making him? For years, Mello had starved for a crumb of recognition, some acknowledgment that the one time they'd met had meant something to L, too. Now that he was finally breaking away, now that he could finally beat Near once and for all, he was seeing L display emotions stronger than anything he'd seemed capable of before. There was only one conclusion to draw.

L had never cared about him. This was about control.

"I don't need your approval anymore! And you hate the idea, don't you? You hate--" He had to pause, gasp in a painful breath. "--that I might not need you anymore. I died for you! Fuck that. I'm living for me from now on!"

He should've stepped out from L's shadow a long time ago. Should have stopped trying to get the blessing that would never come. It had held him back even in Death City. He'd tried to work within the system, thinking only Shibusen could give him the tools he needed to save L, back in their world. Shibusen was destined the be the losing side. Mello saw that now. Incompetents and liars, dragging people in to fight and die for them. No more.

He thought he couldn't get any angrier, until he saw the bruised skin at the edge of L's scarf. "You're still doing it. Still chasing him! And you fucking talk to me about self-destruction?"

Mello twisted, trying to get enough leverage off the floor to flip L off. If he was fast, he could still drag the twit to the feeding pit...

[dead_black_eyes]

The problem with concentrating all of his weight into one sharp knee, with the ball of his other foot touching the floor near Mello’s hip for balance, was that his position was unstable and relatively simple to throw off should his opponent change his position very violently and suddenly. Which Mello managed, putting L’s fierce but unsteady stance off and shoving him away, with the clear goal of seizing Near again and finishing what he’d started.

L had landed on his side, and he didn’t have the time to stand or even push himself to a sitting position before Mello started staggering back toward his rival. His arm snapped out, grasping Mello’s ankle and transforming until it met his shoulder, shackling his successor. It was his best chance to hold him; he wound the fingers of his other hand around the chain, giving it a warning tug.

He peered up at the younger man, suddenly horribly vulnerable. One of Mello’s boots driving itself into his face or stomping on his back seemed discouragingly imminent. Within the near future, at best.

Who was he kidding? L had no future. These boys were his future. More specifically… Near, the one who, among them, had lived to see the end of the Kira case and beyond, was their world’s future.

Quite literally in Mello’s shadow, L stared up at his successor and realized, for the first time, just how exhausted he was.

“We all have regrets,” he said through clenched teeth, eyes wide and rigid. “Killing him? The person you really died for? I can’t let that become your deepest one, Mello.”

[silicomb]

It's the second time Sollux has found himself listening to things he knows he has no real right to hear, but the thought alone doesn't stop his aurals from picking up the conversation regardless. The first time had been by simple accident, an exchange overheard in passing. Nothing wrong with that, it was their fault for letting themselves be overheard, that was all. This time, though, it doesn't feel right. Nothing feels right in any sense of the term. Things he doesn't need to know, things he's not sure he wants to know at all. Dirty laundry aired out that he's sure none of them would be pleased to know he heard, witnessed, knew.

He thinks it embarrassing, fascinating as it is, and the knowledge of these personal secrets made public threatens to make Sollux sick with a strange kind of shame.

It's around then that he notices the change, the shift in conversation, attention, and focus. Near. They'd noticed him, one or the whole bunch, but the myriaad of colours he can make out tells him that the blob of white that is Near has taken note, has turned to him. If that wasn't a cue to something, he didn't know what was. For what reason, though, he can't quite figure out. Help? Assistance? What could a blind troll really do, beyond act as standard cannon fodder? He had no Weapon, Matt was lost somewhere in the warren of caves. He couldn't fight like Mello could, wouldn't even stand a chance with his stature as it was. Did the twit cotton-top expect him to throw himself under the four-wheeled public transit device on a bloody fucking whim?

Midway through a small and growing fit of indignation, it hits him, and he's left to gape in realization for all of a moment before the urgency of the situation drives him toaction, scrambling to his feet clunkily, slow from soreness and sluggish from the caves' own unique miasma.

Near is a Weapon. Sollux didn't have much time before the other two noticed.

[cardfortress]

Near kept a close eye on Mello while shifting away ever so slightly, careful that his partner wouldn't notice his movements. Their entire situation was odd, from the far too intimate confessions coming from Mello's mouth to L's admission that the process of being L was painful and dehumanizing and lonely... and if L himself admitted that out loud, did it mean Near had been allowed to feel those things after he became L, too? The idea made something twist and turn inside his chest, and it took considerable effort and concentration not to dwell on those thoughts for too long. He had other priorities at the moment.

Much like Mello, Near also noticed the wounds that had been previously hidden underneath that uncharacteristic scarf around their mentor's neck. But when his partner twisted his body, he took that as a sign to finally act and ran away from them, to Sollux, having realized earlier when he spotted him that their only chance was to partner up temporarily and immobilize Mello. And maybe the troll thought the same, too, because he got up and was making his way towards Near, albeit rather slowly. When Near reached him-- he could still hear L talking to Mello in he background, although his focus was on the yellow blooded troll in front of him-- there was no time for pleasantries or demonstrations of Weapon abilities.

"I need you to wield me, Sollux," he began, a hand reaching for one of Sollux's wrists and dragging him away, to where Mello and L were, very much like a child trying to drag a classmate away without caring about gentleness while doing so. Given how Near usually speaks in a neutral or apathetic tone of voice, the urgency in his voice made the situation look even worse than what it actually was. "I have no time to explain my abilities. Wield me and I'll do the rest," he explained, fingers tightening around Sollux's wrist when they got close enough to Mello and L. With a surprisingly firm "Now" coming from his lips, Near transformed into the rubik's cube, hoping for their sake that his plan would work out.

[want_the_world]

Mello was slower, clumsier, than he wanted to be, driven by fury verging on madness that, for all its strength, couldn't make his breath come any easier, or his body recover any faster from being slammed to the ground. L's partial transformation took him by surprise, and he kicked out with his unchained foot, backwards and mostly blindly, wanting only to hurt the one who'd hurt him, only dimly aware that his prey was scrambling out of his reach yet again.

Died for him? The twit, the cottonball, the little bastard? No. It was the only way I could beat him, the only way. I went where he could never take that away from me, except this goddamn place dragged me in, and now he's trying to steal my victory, and so are you.

"You're wrong! None of it was for him!"

He didn't expect the sharp tug on the chain at all, and went back down hard, onto his knees, and would have sprawled facefirst if he hadn't flung his hands out in time to catch himself.

[dead_black_eyes]

Near was still there. Why was Near still there, when he should have known that L was risking everything to give him a chance to escape?

As Mello attempted to get forward, he maintained his hold on the younger man's left ankle, essentially serving as a human anchor to slow Near's would-be murderer down. He hadn't had the opportunity to stand, knowing that letting go even for a moment was to risk Mello breaking away and reaching Near to carry out his terrible goal.

He saw Mello's right foot raising; despite the fact that the leather-clad blond could move like a pit viper, L felt like he was watching it in slow-motion. He knew, the way he so often did, what was going to happen. He had to let it, if it meant buying Near a couple of extra moments.

...Oh. Sollux. That was certainly a good reason to stay. L glimpsed him through Mello's legs, close to Near, and suddenly, those few moments seemed like a bargain for what he was about to experience. They could get out of this alive. They could leave, together, in one piece... his grip tightened on the chain, yanking hard as Mello's boot slammed into his face in an attempt to pull the leg supporting all of his weight out from under him.

The pain was blinding; for a second, he thought he'd been hit in the eye. He wasn't sure when it happened, or how, but his arm transformed back into flesh and bone. He was lying on the floor, staring glassily at Mello, Near and Sollux a blur in his peripheral vision.

His gaze moved to the pale hand still grasping Mello's ankle; though he hadn't been able to maintain his Weapon form, he had somehow managed not to let go.

He liked that.

At this moment, L could honestly say that he liked himself. That he was a good person... or at the very least, that he had behaved as a good person ought to. Kira really was wrong to kill him. It was a dire mistake, to kill someone who wouldn't let go of the malicious to protect the innocent...

Near's not innocent, and you're still looking out for your own interests. That's the only reason you're here in the first place.

All right. So maybe he wasn't a saint. But it was damn decent of him, and his lips curved into a soft smile through the pain.

"Everything you do is for him," he said quietly, bringing his free hand to touch the spot below his eye that was crawling with shimmering, bruising pain. "Christmas Eve? The night you got home from the hospital? That was all for him..."

[silicomb]

Sollux had no idea how to wield another Weapon. There was Matt and their method as familiar and easy as clockwork, and then there was everything else. Near was in that latter category, and when he grabbed Sollux's arm, hissed his intent with an urgency Sollux had never before known him capable of, for one brief, breathless moment Sollux wasn't certain he could really do it. Before, maybe, when he was still whole and unimpaired, he could have. As he is now, blind and blasted and a liability in too-large clothes, he's not sure, not the teeming and see-sawing well of alternating confidence when he wasn't crippling doubt and uncertainty. Thankfully, at the very least, Near doesn't give him a choice, and he has to lurch forward to catch the transformed cube before it could fall too far.

He hasn't felt this kind of terror in a sweep, it feels like. Hasn't felt it like this since forever, and that just makes it all the more terrifying. Taking this stance against someone like Mello somehow makes it even worse.

"Don't you fucking miss," he says, fingers closing around the smooth, hard edges of the little cube, and turns toward the sound of Mello's low, hard voice.

[cardfortress]

Unlike Sollux, Near had partnered-- temporarily or otherwise-- with other people, but that didn't make this any easier. No previous experience or partnership could have prepared him to be wielded by someone else just so he could direct an attack at Mello-- his partner, and the one person he trusted the most-- but he had no choice but to do it. And so, he tried to block everything out, from Sollux's nervousness to L's very distracting words (and what did he mean, the night they got home from the hospital? Surely he couldn't have seen them sharing the same bed?), and focused solely on his temporary Meister, their attempted resonance, and their target.

But it was easier said than done. His resonance with Sollux wasn't painful, but it felt too much like wearing a prickly sweater: it got the job done, but it was still damn uncomfortable, and the troll's nerves didn't make the task any easier.

Missing was entirely out of the question, and thankfully for Mello, so was hurting him. In his current state as a completely unsolved Rubik's cube, Near was only capable of one thing: a confusion attack, harmless enough to not have any lasting effects, but powerful enough to immobilize Mello simply by confusing him and making him unable to think coherently.

This won't hurt him, he said to Sollux through their resonance, hoping he would become slightly less nervous about this whole thing if he knew Mello wouldn't get hurt, thus making the attack more effective. And so, Near focused entirely on targeting Mello with mind-numbing levels of confusion, crossing his currently non-existent fingers for L to follow his cue and take the opportunity for all it was worth.

[want_the_world]

Mello felt the quality of L's hold on him change, but, goddamn it, he was still keeping him from gaining his feet. There was nothing Mello could do but watch the twit transform and drop into Sollux's hand, and where the fuck had the troll come from--

And.

And L's last words seemed to echo back, resonating oddly, but resonate, that wasn't the right word, that meant something else now.

"Everything I do...?" His voice went soft, hesitant.

It wasn't true, it couldn't be. Mello had to win, and Near had to die, but he couldn't remember why he'd been so sure of it only moments ago. He looked up at Gemini, and he was supposed to be mad at him, right? Coming out of nowhere like that, wielding Near...

His thoughts had circled back around, somehow, to the question he'd asked and didn't have an answer to, and he should get the hell up, do something. But what? He felt as if his head were thick with cotton wool.

"But it's not," he said, almost to himself, knowing the denial was important, but unsure of exactly why.

[dead_black_eyes]

"You're wrong," L said quietly, taking advantage of Mello's sudden confusion to pull himself up to his knees. His ears still rang, his cheek stung something fierce, but it could have been so much worse. He could have lost an eye. He could have lost one, or both, of his successors.

"You're wrong, but that's OK. You're just going to have to try to trust me on that... because for all the times I wasn't there, for all the times I couldn't be there, I'm here now."

He embraced Mello, pressing his chest against the other man's back and very, very strategically holding down Mello's arms with his own. He squeezed tightly, a firm, solid, reassuring hug, even as his arms became chains, wrapping Mello up safely in a makeshift straight jacket. Complete with cuffs at the wrists.

[silicomb]

This was not Sollux's place. This was not Sollux's business, not the time for him to be there and listening in on their own personal dirt. It's shameful. It's embarrassing. It's mortifying that when the attack unleashes, he actually breaths that stupid sigh of relief that it isn't a direct offensive. He came to save Mello and Near, not beat the former senseless with the broad side of the latter.

"Is that it?" His question could be for Near, just as it could be for any one of the assembled; he's not really certain himself.

Yet despite the situation, he's stepping forward, cubic Weapon held out like a ward even if he could do without the unpleasant prickle and scratch of resonation. L had it in control, right? Mello wouldn't pull shit now, right? He could let go of this resonation and its accompanying discomfort like it never happened, couldn't he?

[cardfortress]

He could tell it was working, but they weren't out of danger just yet: they had to restrain Mello in a way that would really work in the long term.

We aren't done yet, Near replied, doing his best to remain focused on his attack while gradually becoming more aware of their surroundings. His confused state will only last while I keep this up. The moment I end it or turn back into my body, he will be back to what he was before we interfered.

He had to keep this up as long as his own strength allowed him to; their lives were at risk but so was Mello's, and Near didn't want to hurt him despite everything that had happened in the past few days.

If he snaps out of his confusion, he will lash out and be just as destructive as before, he kept on explaining, needing Sollux to understand just how important their temporary resonance was. We need to keep him under control for now.

[want_the_world]

Mello was shocked into immobility at the embrace, but the moment he realized what L's true purpose was, he tried to fight, despite the confusion still engulfing him. He tested the strength of the cuffs with a vicious tug that threatened to dislocate his shoulders, to no avail.

Sollux was using Near as his Weapon, and that was wrong, he was Mello's, and no one else's, Mello's to play with, to use, as Near had tried to use him in their world. His to kill, when the time was right, because that meant winning, once and for all, the final end to their rivalry.

"Stop it!" he snarled at Sollux and Near, not sure what he was doing, only that it was clearly their fault that Mello was suddenly unable to hold onto his thoughts, that they ran away from him like the tide going out.

"They'll kill us all anyway, don't you know?" Quieter now, more resigned. He couldn't formulate an argument as to why they should let him go, but he could say why it didn't matter in the long run. The witches, they'd done something-- he reached for the thought and lost it almost immediately. And it didn't matter. If he was dead twice over already, he sure as fuck wasn't going down without a fight. He began to try to stand, to drag L with him, slow and laborious and probably futile.

[dead_black_eyes]

L winced slightly at the sudden jerk; it was always very strange, the way the metal pulled against the place where it became comparatively fragile flesh and bone. But he'd gotten used to his Weapon form enough to know his limits, and he was well within his ability to restrain Mello. His successor wasn't weak, but L's advantages were in height and in leverage. While Mello probably could have lifted him easily, if he'd been willing or even unconscious, L was actively working to keep him from getting to his feet, holding him down, using his legs as well as his arms. The whole process was strenuous and tiring, but Near was aiding by keeping that attack going strong, Sollux was helping by wielding him. He could maintain this for... well, hopefully as long as it needed to be maintained.

Unfortunately, it meant leaving Mello and himself vulnerable to attacks from others in the Kishin Chamber.

A shrill laugh sounded just over L's shoulder. Someone had left the main battle... he couldn't tell whether it was a witch or not, but she certainly wasn't going to do anything nice to them, with that curved blade.

His options were scarce and appalling. If he and Mello died here, Near could still escape. He drew what he fully expected to be his last breath.

*slides on in here*

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura's worry over the fate of his friend had only deepened as he, Vash and Light had gone in circles in the cave system, winding ultimately back at the mirror; a mixed blessing that had allowed them to send Light back to Death City before the partnered duo hurried back into the caves once more.

It was only by chance that Bakura had heard the scraps of yelling and the soft echoes of a familiar voice. But the relief at having found his friend was cut short as they arrived at the same time as the attacking monster.

"Look out!"

Bakura only spared the brief seconds needed to yell the warning before transforming into his die form, Vash aiming as he rolled to send out the wave of white energy that would harmlessly wash through the Guests in the room if they happened to be in its path to slam into the cackling monstrosity.

It let out a pained and indignant shriek as it was knocked back, but not defeated.

"Hurry up and get back to the mirror, we'll cover you!" Vash called to the group as he and Bakura readied for another shot.

[silicomb]

Keep it up or risk all their lives, of course. No pressure whatsoever. A perigree ago, Sollux might have buckled under the weight of possibility alone, but here and now, sightless and desperate, he hasn't felt as alive since his last, blinding fight.

"He needs out of it is what he needs," he says, in between the screeches of the thing and the shouts of someone new, someone strange. Too much going on but he couldn't turn away just yet. Mello needed this. Hell, they all did, this temporary and shitty little resonance, and Sollux holds it as best he can even when his shoulders hunch up, defensive against the rush of energy at his back and the unseen danger lurking in the chamber they were in.

"Mirror, that's right. We need the fucking mirror." But how could he transport three fully fucking grown humans on his own?

This was stupid.

[cardfortress]

No no no, this shouldn't be happening, Mello should be too confused to even be able to speak properly, much less snarl and struggle against L! Near didn't know if it was his resonance with Sollux, his own exhaustion, the fact that he was attacking his own Meister or perhaps something else, but his confusion attack wasn't as effective as it usually was. Mello was still too coherent and thus dangerous, given the current circumstances, when the only guarantee of safety was to have him completely restrained.

And then that shrill laughter echoed inside the cave, and Near felt the all too familiar coldness of fear-- But then someone came along and helped them, told them to make their way back to the mirror, and Near dared to hope that they would make it out of this alive.

We will need another way to restrain him soon, he finally said to Sollux through their resonance, his tone firm. They had to hold their ground, no matter how much they cared about Mello's well-being. The confusion attack isn't enough to hold him back, and I don't know for how long I will manage to keep it working.